


Better than the Fall

by Runespoor



Series: teen superhero team [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before, she used to be able to fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better than the Fall

**[Issue #13]**

Before, she used to be able to fly; it was about momentum and controlling her body mass, and she turned out to be really good at it, when Sanji was muttering about criss-crossing winds and breezes that had to be accounted for.

Then Dr Nightmare rewrote reality, and the whiplash struck her when she was getting his daughter to safety.

She has been off her rhythm ever since, hanging at HQ and helping out however she can, and no-one in the team is trying to make her feel bad - Stonecold even gave her hir mentor's phone number, who'd been depowered a few years back - but in the end she leaves; she's gonna go on a roadtrip, she tells everyone. See the world. She's been in Paris three times, and she only saw the Eiffel Tower to keep it from either exploding or being used as a focus point for invading aliens' radio transmissions. Maybe she'll come back, but for now she's out of the game.

She has a passport, one she got without telling the team about it. There's her real name on it, or at least her birth name, which feels realer than it has since the moment she figured out what she could her powers for.

When the plane leaves the ground and she looks out the window to see the floor getting further under them, there's a knot in her throat.

"You alright?" asks the guy next to her, sotto voce. She must look very ill, but that's better than the side-eyeing she got for boarding while being Middle-Eastern.

"It's my first time on a plane," she says.

It's not a lie, and it's a good explanation given the guy's sympathetic nod.

"It gets better once we're in the air."

She hopes so.

*

 **[Issue #19]**

"Where. Is. My daughter."

Dr Nightmare's menacing voice cuts through the surrounding din of people chatting. She looks up – cranes her neck, expecting an auditory hallucination, hoping her powers are creeping back – but there he is, floating two meters above the ground in the middle of Moscow, glaring down at her. He’s wearing a business suit that’s nothing like his usual attire, but then, she’s not dressed “for the job” either. It isn’t her job anymore.

Instinctively, she reaches out with her reality feelers, it would _not_ be the first time her powers make her see things that aren’t there, but the senses she’s trying to extend don’t exist anymore.

He’s real. He’s really real.

One of the most dangerous supervillains on Earth, a guy that can fight the Alliance to a stand-still, is threatening her like she registers on his radar.

There’s something very wrong with this picture.

“Crap,” she hears her mouth say.

“I know you took her. Hid her. You and your little friends,” he says, floating down to the ground. There’s a widening berth around them, and she’s not sure how they do these things here, but if they were in the US they’d be three minutes away from superhero intervention and police circling the place to keep civilians out.

Crap, her secret identity. She never really hung onto it, once she’d discovered her powers she was pretty much like all being a hero all the time, but it was still—it was still hers. And now it’s—

“Tell me where she is.”

“I have _no_ idea,” she devoutly lies, because what the hell.

The team got the kid into witness protection program, on the grounds that an eleven-year old really can’t fight crime, sorry, no we’re not making this up, it’s _not_ because your dad’s a bad guy, Stonecold’s mom is a bad guy and so was Promise’s dad, look, come back when you’re thirteen and then we’ll see what we can do, alright?

That’s possibly still more of an idea than what Dr Nightmare is going with.

“Wait, how did you track me down?”

This is bad, her hindbrain is informing her. Geeze, thank you. You’d think after her powers disappeared she’d get her survival instincts and such back to normal level.

The smile that slowly curls his lips chills her blood. “Why, I asked your friends, of course. I daresay, our work together was a true break-through for Promise’s powers.”

Promise’s power is sometimes knowing when someone’s lying, and sometimes saying things that turn out to be true, and sometimes making people forget and sometimes forcing the truth out and a couple of other things that haven’t happened in years. It took two catastrophes before Promise learned to tell when he’s botched it. It’s really powerful when you figure out what’s happening, but it’s not the most reliable thing ever. And she’s not judging, as she’s hardly one to talk.

He took the name back when the only manifestation of his powers was telekinesis, and he chose it because he’d sworn himself he was never going to follow in his father’s footsteps. It’s almost a joke among the team: Promise never breaks one.

She didn’t keep the team updated, and even if they had tabs on her, Promise wouldn’t tell.

His grin widens until he looks like Count Sinister, and he takes a step closer, until if he reached out he could strike her.

Around them the flux of people has started again. Big cities are used to flying people enough that it doesn’t have a completely disruptive effect on routine. Even if a super drops from god-knows-where to catch up with someone, people still have to go to work.

“You should answer my question, Ecstasy. You couldn’t defeat me even if you were on top of your game. And from what your little playmates told me, you’re not. From a sci—“

He lets out a strangled yell when she drives the palm of her hand into his nose, cartilage giving under the hit, and she feels warm liquid gushing down, splashing her hand. He bends over, hands raised over his nose, he’s right in front of her and he’s like a normal guy, for once, like any normal guy who didn’t expect it, and she can just grab the back of his head and drives her knee into his face, and he falls to the ground, howling.

Then she runs off into a mad dash between people, feeling dizzy and free and like the world’s expanded around her again, like she’s falling free and there’s nothing to stop her but her.

She’s feeling better than she ever has. She throws her head back and screams a laugh, her lungs filled with ecstasy and her veins rushing with adrenalin.


End file.
